Sunday, 7 December 2014

Marriage: Rethinking What Makes it "Christian"

“Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married
Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her …” (Genesis 24:67;
NIV).

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about marriage, and
specifically the question as to what constitutes marriage in God’s eyes. For
the purpose of this musing, I’m not interested in the current popular
discussion about whether or not the homosexual community should or shouldn’t be
allowed to get married, nor am I interested in society’s definition of marriage
at all, but rather only about God’s view of marriage for His children.

Having said that, and for the purpose of this post, I’m
defining “His children” as true Christians – born again, filled with the
Spirit, Bible believing – as opposed to those who might identify themselves as
such simply based upon their lineage or denominational upbringing, without
having any real relationship with Jesus Christ.

If you would call yourself a true child of God, a Christian
as described above, then what does it take to be considered “married” before
God? Assuming there is such a thing as a “Christian wedding,” what is it? Is it
getting married in a church building as opposed to in a courthouse or a park?
Is it having a pastor (priest, reverend, minister, etc.) presiding over some special
ceremony in such a church building as opposed to a justice of the peace or some
other provincial/state sanctioned person saying a few words and making the
declaration that these two people are now married?

And what about the term “Holy Wedlock?”

The word “Holy” suggests that it’s a God-thing for sure, and
there is a “lock” in wedlock suggesting a permanency to the union, but again,
how do we get to that part? Oh, I know how we get there in our modern society;
I’ve been to enough weddings. But do those ways of getting there truly make
“Holy Wedlock,” or are we still missing something here?

At the risk of digressing too far, many years ago while I
was still a pastor, I remember thinking of how I would rather officiate a
funeral than a wedding any day. No, I didn’t preach that from the pulpit.
However, the few select individuals I did mention it to, often had that “deer
in the headlights” blank stare, thinking such a thing as rather odd. After all,
funerals are often seen as depressing and sad, whereas weddings are happy
times. But as an evangelical pastor, I saw more opportunity for pastoral care
and to present the important things in life - such as the Gospel, our
mortality, and eternity – at funerals than I did at weddings. Do people really
pay attention to the words the pastor says at a wedding, or are they just
looking at the beautiful bride and thinking ahead to the party that’s about
follow?At a funeral, however, we are
all forced to deal with the question of death and the possibility of life afterwards.
That question never comes up at a wedding. But back to the original musing:

What does it mean to be married in the eyes of God?

First of all it means being yoked to someone of like
Christian faith. Paul said, “Do not be
yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have
in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” (2 Corinthians
6:14; NIV). Many have understood that to mean that a Christian should never
marry a non-Christian, because in the important things in life, there simply is
no common denominator.

I remember getting myself in hot water one time when I
refused to marry a couple in the church I was pastoring. The bride’s parents
were active members of the church, but she lived in another community and
simply wanted to get married in her “home church,” a term that I understand
less and less as time goes on. And though she claimed to be a Christian, and
certainly grew up in a Christian home, she was marrying a divorced man who was
clearly a non-Christian. They were not yoked together in a common Christian
faith, and though the wedding still happened, because of my own convictions at
the time, I refused to officiate it. Needless to say, it didn’t make me very
popular with the family.

Likewise I used to cringe when people would come to the
church office and ask to “book the church” for their wedding and ask me to
officiate it. I wondered why they, non-Christians, wanted to be married in a
church building. After all, if you clearly don’t believe in God, then why
choose the place where people who do believe in Him hang out as the place to
get married? Why not just go to the courthouse, or some little Las Vegas chapel
where they don’t care what you believe? Or do they think that by getting
married in a church building that they suddenly are having a “Christian”
wedding? Does standing in front of a pastor as you exchange vows make the whole
thing somehow more Christian and legitimate? On more than one occasion I’ve
mused about the hypocrisy of it all.

Sometimes I think we kid ourselves. The only thing that
makes a wedding “Christian” is when two genuine Christians choose to get
married to each other. It has nothing to do with where the event happens, and
I’m beginning to think, nor does it have anything to do with who leads or
officiates it. Having said that, and at the risk of further toying with a
possible sacred cow, do we really even need a pastor at a genuine Christian
wedding at all? Sure, the state/province requires certain approved individuals
there for legality’s sake, but again, that has nothing to do with whether or
not we’re married before God. In fact, I am hard pressed to find any biblical
reference to a pastor (priest, reverend, minister, etc.) involved in the
wedding ceremony, but I do find mention that “God has joined together, let man not separate” (Mark 10:9); the
Officiator is God, not man. This begs another question:

Does God Require Man’s Pomp and Ceremony?

Could it be enough for a genuine Christian man and a genuine
Christian woman who love each other and who want to spend the rest of their
lives together to simply make the decision, perhaps announce their intentions
to a couple Christian friends as witnesses and to pray over them, and then
simply move in together? Then, having consummated that relationship, are they
not, based upon their faith, already married before God? Is that perhaps not a
better definition of “Holy Wedlock?” Is that not a “Christian Wedding” in the
truest sense of the term? Does man’s officiating it in a solemn ceremony make
it any more so? Does the reciting of man-made vows trump the two hearts,
already joined together in the Holy Spirit?

Let’s take this one step further. Is this too not a part of
our being called “a chosen people, a
royal priesthood, a people belonging to God, that you may declare … “ (1
Peter 2:9); that you and I, average and ordinary Christians, have just as much
authority in the eyes of God (if not more so based upon our relationships) to
declare someone married as the pastor or judge? The power may not be vested in
us by the state to do so, but as a child of God and joint heir with Jesus
Christ (Romans 8:17), could it not be said that all genuine Christians already have
all the authority they need to bind or to loose (Matthew 16:19), including praying
for and declaring a couple married before God?

I remember one wedding I went to several years ago where a non-clergy
friend of mine performed such a small ceremony. There was no pastor or priest,
and to make it legal in the eyes of the province, the couple still had to visit
a justice of the peace afterwards, but by then the real “Christian wedding” had
already happened. When I asked the bride afterwards why she chose our mutual
friend to “officiate,” she told me it was because he was the most godly man she
knew. What I found interesting (and sad at the same time) was that none of the
local pastors even made her list, but that’s a topic for another time.

The Ironic Dichotomy

In a day and age when it is said that there are now more
so-called Christian marriages ending in divorce than non-Christian marriages,
it makes me wonder. Could it really be possible that we Christians, who preach love and forgiveness, ironically have yet to learn how to truly love and forgive one another? So much for those marriage vows, and so much for the pomp and ceremony in which we uttered them.

In a day and age when even cohabitating people, if they
break up, are considered married by the courts and are given the same rights
with regards to property and wealth distribution as married couples are, it all
makes me wonder. It also begs another couple questions: What is marriage really? Where is God in those marriages?

Have we perhaps turned our so-called Christian weddings into
simply another religious event? Given the distain many have for being religious, and based upon the previous statistic, have we perhaps in some ways ironically
become even more worldly than the non-believing world around us? Ouch! And if so, it also begs the question: Why do we bother with the whole pomp and ceremony at all?

Disclaimer

"Rethinking Faith and Church" may not be right for everyone, and especially not those who are unable to look at Christian faith from outside of the religious status quo that is sometimes called institutionalism. Here you will find a plethora of posts that will challenge you, hopefully encourage you, and quite possibly even upset you from time to time. You may even find a chuckle or two from some of the more satirical posts. Offence is not intended, but as with all "rethinking," sometimes toes do get stepped on. In the end, hopefully it's all done in love and for the glory of God. For more about this blog, please click on the 'Caution' sign above. Thanks for the visit. Peace and Blessings.